COLOMBO — Fifteen local employees of a French aid agency have been found dead in a town in northeastern Sri Lanka at the center of heavy fighting between Tamil rebels and government forces, an aid group said Sunday.

The bodies of 11 men and 4 women, all wearing Action Against Hunger T-shirts, were found face down in their office in Muttur, said Jeevan Thiagarajah, the head of the main umbrella group for aid agencies in the country.

"We don't know how they died or even when it happened," said Thiagarajah, from the Consortium for Humanitarian Agencies. "Our staff drove to Muttur this morning, and they found the bodies," he added.

More than 800 people have been killed so far this year in escalating attacks and military clashes. The closure of a sluice gate providing water to government territory last month prompted the first ground fighting since a cease-fire began in 2002. (AFP, Reuters)

Pakistan has ordered an Indian diplomat alleged to have been caught with "sensitive documents" to leave the country, prompting a reciprocal expulsion by India, in a setback to the nuclear-armed rivals' shaky peace process.

Pakistani officials accused Deepak Kaul, a visa official at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, of "undesirable activities." He was told to leave the country Monday.

Kaul was caught on Saturday by Pakistani agents "red-handed with sensitive documents," a Pakistani government official said on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

India responded a few hours later, ordering Mohammed Rafique, a visa official at Pakistan's High Commission in New Delhi, to leave India by Monday, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said. (AP)

TOKYO

Koizumi could visit shrine 'at any time'

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Sunday that he was ready "at any time" to visit a Tokyo war shrine criticized as a symbol of militarism, indicating that he planned to make another visit before he stepped down in September.

Koizumi again defended his visits to Yasukuni Shrine to pray for Japan's war dead but did not specify when he might go again.

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Koizumi last visited the shrine in October 2005, and he is widely expected to make his next visit on Aug. 15, the anniversary of the end of World War II, before stepping down as prime minister in September.

"I'm ready to visit at any time, but I will decide appropriately," Koizumi told a group of reporters in Hiroshima, where he attended a ceremony marking the 61st anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of the city at the end of World War II. (AP)

MEXICO CITY

Candidate encourages more street protests

The leftist candidate for the Mexican presidency called for more street protests to demand a full recount in the country's disputed July 2 election, despite the Federal Electoral Court's ruling that only a partial, ballot-by-ballot review was necessary.

The tribunal decided Saturday that granting Andrés Manuel López Obrador's request for a full recount would violate electoral laws that prohibit recounts unless there is evidence of irregularities or fraud. Instead, the court's seven judges voted in favor of a recount of 11,839 polling places - about 9 percent of the more than 130,000 nationwide - where they determined that problems were evident.

Aides of López Obrador's rival, Felipe Calderón, the governing party's candidate, applauded the ruling. Calderón has an advantage of less than 0.6 percent, or about 240,000 votes, according to an official count. (AP)

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia

Flooding kills 150

Floods have killed about 150 people in eastern Ethiopia after heavy rains caused a river to burst its banks, sending a wall of water into a town that killed most of the victims as they slept, the police said on Sunday.

"Floods from the overflowing Dechatu River hit Dire Dawa town in the middle of Saturday night while residents were sleeping," said Benyam Fikru, a police inspector.

Rescuers from the police and army launched an operation early on Sunday, Benyam said, using bulldozers to dig through the sandy river banks in search of more corpses.